


The Tale of Raiden

by avani



Category: Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28203195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avani/pseuds/avani
Summary: Raiden's family is a strange one.
Relationships: Background Hanzo/Saraitu, Kubo & Raiden (Kubo and the Two Strings), Raiden & Saraitu
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	The Tale of Raiden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Puffinmuffin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Puffinmuffin/gifts).



Raiden’s family is, to put it delicately, a strange one. 

“My daughter is a monkey,” he says, trying yet again to arrange the facts in a manner that makes sense to him. He hates disorder; he knows this, and yet it does nothing to abate the muddle in his mind. It hangs heavy in his head like an ache he cannot soothe. 

“There’s no need to be  _ rude _ ,” his wife replies serenely, and he blinks at her. She is squat and outrageous, but at least he chose within the species the second time around. “Besides, I don’t see a tail, do you?”

“No--I--”

There is fur on his daughter’s shoulders. Her palms shine an unnatural pink. Her eyes are black and beady and they do not trust or like him.

Even disregarding these physical objections, he watches the strain in her shoulders, the rise and fall of her voice. Is there anything at all of him that he might see in her? Are there any remnants of the man he used to be in her habits? He watches her, how she holds herself stiffly when around him, how her mouth curls into a frown, how that sword of hers catches the light and burns against his eyes like an insult, and when he gulps in a breath, on the precipice of a revelation--

All he can see is this: She is an ape. She is his daughter, and a stranger to him.

This is nothing compared to who she wed. 

“A beetle?” His voice is incredulous; he can hear it himself. “I let her marry a beetle?”

“A samurai beetle,” corrects his son-in-law sunnily. “And it was a beautiful ceremony. You cried. Twice. Between you and me, it was a little embarrassing.”

And then somehow these two together created his grandson. Kubo is the most mysterious of all. His eyes crinkle with laughter at everything his parents say. He walks among the villagers, straight and proud, as though not the product of a most peculiar union. He loves his stories and his shamisen, and Raiden cannot understand him at all.

What he does understand is Kubo’s love for his instrument. Raiden loves it too--an echo of his grandson’s passion, perhaps. His fingers curl instinctively around an invisible pick when he catches sight of it in the corner of his eye; his ears are sensitive to each mistaken strum, few and far apart though they are. He makes the mistake of giving into temptation and reaching for it no more than once.

“No!”

His daughter’s teeth are bared, her body braced to attack. Kameyo hisses. Behind her, Beetle does his best to look as though only one of his arms is casually reaching for his bow. Even Kubo winces and pulls his instrument closer to him.

“I don't think that's a good idea, Grandfather.”

Raiden pulls his empty hand back, ashamed of himself and not entirely certain why.

*

He must have had a profession once; he knows that much. But now he is clumsy: he lets the rice burn and uproots vegetables in place of weeds. He tells stories out of order and can barely sing. His long, soft fingers tangle knots when he is asked to weave and shudder from the touch of steel. Raiden is, as far as he can tell, entirely useless. 

His family says nothing of this. He wonders if it is a habit of long standing. His daughter’s eyes tighten when she studies him, and his son-in-law makes jokes too obviously calculated at ease.

“There, there.” His wife pats his arm. “At least you still have that pretty face.”

This ought to be more comforting than it is. Raiden studies his hands. He remembers: he was proud of them once--but why? And when? He rejoiced once to see their symmetry echoed--but by whom? And where?

“And your family,” Kubo says quietly, from where he sits. “You still have that.”

Raiden wonders what he has forgotten to mourn. 

*

It waxes with him, this hunger to  _ know _ . It ebbs and flows, and it will never let him go. 

Raiden despairs.

*

He does not approach his daughter for answers; he doubts she would want him to. Instead he hovers by his son-in-law, this beetle who claims to be a warrior, this buffoon who clearly isn’t. At least, Raiden supposes, he might feel some superiority by comparison--but, then again, his son-in-law smiles at his wife and child with assurance, his outlandish appearance notwithstanding. Even this small comfort, then, is to be denied Raiden.

Which leaves nothing but to confront the--monkey, it seems--in her den. Raiden approaches timidly, and yet his daughter stops in the midst of sharpening her sword. Her eyes dart from side to side, and only when she is sure that Kubo is far beyond arm’s length does she turn to face him.

“Yes?” she says, unsmiling.

Raiden has a thousand things he wants to know, and none he dares ask. Was he unkind to her, and how, and why, and in what manner might he have her forgiveness? What is she knows that hardens her heart, and why is he to be denied any knowledge of it? What gives her the right, impudent Saraitu, defiant where none of her sisters had ever been, determined to throw his well-ordered world into chaos, dangerous beyond measure--

He blinks. He studies his feet. “Nothing, my dear,” he says at last, and pretends he does not hear the stars above jeering. 

*

At last he has had enough. He rises from his straw mat, where his squat unhandsome human wife snores and stalks to the courtyard beyond their house. Lanterns have been strung alongside the trees; insects buzz and bite. The moon hangs low and full, coppery-red tonight. 

Kubo is sitting on a boulder just within the gates, playing his shamisen. Raiden might have expected to find him here. He hesitates, and settles down beside him. 

“I was wondering,” he says, “if I might play, after all.”

Kubo, to his credit, does not refuse, but relinquishes the instrument at once, and Raiden reaches for it. It takes no more than the barest touch to set his blood afire, to bring his mind alive. He has missed this.

If his grandson does not seem surprised at the recognition that flickers upon Raiden’s face, neither does he seem alarmed. Instead he leans back and says, politely: “It’s very good.”

“Your mother learned from the best,” Raiden replies. He does not want to speak; he wants to play until he need never forget again, until the universe fades away and all that remains is the sparse beauty of his music. He knows he cannot.

“It’s all right,” Kubo says kindly. “It’s always worst around the full moon. I know you try.”

_ Try? Can the attempts of a blundering, blinded fool be called a try _ ? “What have I remembered,” Raiden asks instead, voice harsh, “before?”

“Enough.” Of course; it had been almost a year since his grandson’s victory, and so it followed that there would have been eleven turns of the moon: eleven times for the power of the moon to rise and swell again. Raiden is silent, but Kubo does not move to take the shamisen away--only watches him, as though curious and utterly unafraid.

As it should be; for Raiden is afraid enough for both of them. He thinks of the silvery perfection of the world he once knew; he thinks of his daughters, buried in unmarked graves. He thinks of Saraitu, still angry, still unruly, beside him once more.

He nearly flings the shamisen away, into Kubo’s waiting arms. “Do it then,” he commands. “Do what you must.”

“Are you sur--” Kubo stops and laughs ruefully. “Of course you’re sure. You’re always sure that this is what you want.”

He is. He imagines he always is. Better for them all that he slumber, and best for him. Only--

“Tell your mother,” he says, as Kubo begins to play the first few notes, “Tell her--tell her to forgive me, if she can.” His eyelids droop. “But never--forget.”

“I will,” he thinks he hears Kubo promise, but he can never be sure.

*

In the morning, Raiden wakes and wonders only this: what a strange family I have.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide! I hope you enjoy this.


End file.
